won into making a picnic in these mountain solitudes than when high
water stayed the fords and drifting snow the Sierran trails. At the
close of one of these Arcadian days Cass was smoking before the door of
his lonely cabin when he was astounded by the onset of a dozen of his
companions. Peter Drummond, far in the van, was waving a newspaper like
a victorious banner. "All's right now, Cass, old man!" he panted as he
stopped before Cass and shoved back his eager followers.
"What's all right?" asked Cass, dubiously.
"_You_! You kin rake down the pile now. You're hunky! You're on velvet.
Listen!"
He opened the newspaper and read, with annoying deliberation, as
follows:--
"LOST.--If the finder of a plain gold ring, bearing the engraved
inscription, 'May to Cass,' alleged to have been picked up on the high
road near Blazing Star on the 4th March, 186--, will apply to Bookham &
Sons, bankers, 1007 Y. Street, Sacramento, he will be suitably rewarded
either for the recovery of the ring, or for such facts as may identify
it, or the locality where it was found."
Cass rose and frowned savagely on his comrades. "No! no!" cried a dozen
voices assuringly. "It's all right! Honest Injun! True as gospel! No
joke, Cass!"
"Here's the paper, Sacramento 'Union' of yesterday. Look for yourself,"
said Drummond, handing him the well-worn journal. "And you see," he
added, "how darned lucky you are. It ain't necessary for you to produce
the ring, so if that old biled owl of a Boompointer don't giv' it back
to ye, it's all the same."
"And they say nobody but the finder need apply," interrupted another.
"That shuts out Boompointer or Kanaka Joe for the matter o' that."
"It's clar that it _means_ you, Cass, ez much ez if they'd given your
name," added a third.
For Miss Porter's sake and his own Cass had never told them of the
restoration of the ring, and it was evident that Mountain Charley had
also kept silent. Cass could not speak now without violating a secret,
and he was pleased that the ring itself no longer played an important
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